Leon Turnbull Photography

– Hannibal Smith
So … what a great hike this weekend. One of the best hikes I have had in quite some time. Why was it so great? The waterfall was certainly not spectacular with the low flow in the creek. It was a killer hike down to it too. Lots of ticks. Fresh mountain lion scat. Poison oak. Does that sound like a fantastic hike to you?

Well it does sound pretty good to me, but mostly it was because I did not think I would have any chance in a cat’s meow to ever get to this waterfall. I knew there was a waterfall here because the rafters stop here on their way down the Middle Fork American River. I never heard of anyone ever hiking to this waterfall. I never heard of any trail to it. Certainly it was not possible.

Then I heard recently that there was a powerhouse down at the bottom of Canyon Creek. Hmmm, surely if there was a powerhouse, there must be a road to it as well. This is logical. They have to get to the powerhouse somehow, don’t they? (never mind that they could take a very short boat ride across the river). I studied Google Earth for hours looking for such road. I could not see one. The image quality of this particular area in GE is quite bad. Well if there is any road, I determined it would come from one of three directions. I picked the most logical one and decided to try it. If I struck out, I figured that I could just go on a different hike in that area instead.

I chose wisely my friends. I was so pleased. I drove up to Georgetown on Saturday morning, in the early morning hours. I only had to 10:30AM to finish this hike. My daughter’s birthday party started at noon at Sunrise Rollerland (near the Sunrise Mall). It would be close but I was sure I could do it. The road crosses Canyon Creek and I got out (in the dark) and checked the creek conditions. The creek was flowing quite strongly. I was happy. I continued driving up on rough dirt roads until I reached my proposed trailhead. There was a gate here, and lots of no trespassing signs. Humph!

Well I knew no one would be around so I decided to just go. I was pretty sure that this was a public road anyway, at least to begin with. As it turns out, this is a public historic trail, the Wendell T Robie Trail. I had no idea this trail went here, and it actually goes all the way down to Canyon Creek and continues along the river to Sliger Mine. As I said, I had no clue about this. I did not think there could possibly be a trail here since no one had ever mentioned hiking to this waterfall. Well what do I know anyway. As for the gate and signs? They are illegal, I am sure of it. Someone has built a new house down here, and put up the gates and signs to keep people out, but they have no right to block access to a historic trail, and the trail does not even go anywhere near the house anyway. It really bugs me.

So anyway, I was quite pleased to find out my route continued all the way down to Canyon Creek. That is the understatement of the year thus far. I was ecstatic. It was steep though, eventually losing 1600 ft. in elevation by the time I reached the river. The last 1000 ft. were particularly nasty. Nothing dangerous. Just straight down steepness. Hiking back up the trail was nightmarish. The road is clearly not used anymore by the powerhouse people. I suspect at one time it was, though it is so steep and narrow, I don’t think you could ever drive a vehicle down it, but they must have used it for something or other.

Once down at the creek, I needed to work my way back upstream to the waterfall. This part I figured would be easy, since the rafters come here all the time, I was certain there must be a good trail leading up to the falls. Ah, no. No trail at all. The only way to do it is to hike right up the creekbed. It was slippery, there were cascades and big boulders that you had to climb up, crossing the creek back and forth a few times, and also poison oak that you had to go through in a couple places. It was actually quite fun.

It took awhile but I finally got up to the waterfall, cascading down into a beautiful deep pool. There was about half the flow in the creek that was up at the bridge crossing. No doubt this is due to the water being sucked out of the creek into the powerhouse. It is a pretty waterfall but it would look much better at higher flows, and I really would like to come back here someday. The only thing is, I do not think it is going to be possible to hike up the creekbed at higher flows. I will probably try it someday anyhow. Could be fun.

On the hike back up, I saw what appeared to be fresh mountain lion scat along the trail. At least I think it was mountain lion. Whatever it was, it was very fresh. Two weeks ago, a mountain lion was stalking a hiker in Colfax and eventually had to be killed. I have been on edge since hearing about that. I was prepared today, with my bear spray very handy as I hiked (hoping that bear spray also works on mountain lions) – normally I am more worried about ticks and poison oak. Anyway, I did not see anything but quail, squirrels, and a deer. And I did make it to my daughter’s birthday party on time. What a great day.